CHAPTER 2. FIRST FOOTPRINTS IN THE DARKNESS OF NIGHT
Dawn on Tuban's northern coast rose in hues of molten gold and red, setting the horizon ablaze. Yet behind the beauty of morning sweeping across the waves of the Java Sea, tranquility within the walls of the Duchy of Tuban had shattered into pieces. News that the duchy's main rice granary had been successfully broken into spread like fire through dry brush.
At the western granary complex, Patih Sasrabahu stood with a face flushed crimson. His hands, heavy with agate rings, were clenched tightly as he glared at the enormous broken teak door and the deeply carved words left behind on the granary's wooden wall. The dozen guards entrusted with protecting the duchy's wealth the night before now knelt with their heads bowed low, their bodies trembling with fear.
"One man?" Patih Sasrabahu's voice thundered, shattering the morning silence. "You're boasting! How could a single masked man incapacitate twelve elite duchy soldiers without spilling a drop of blood, then haul away dozens of sacks of rice in a single night?!"
The head guard, whom Raden Said had struck at the acupressure point the day before, edged forward, his voice breathless and hoarse. "Forgive me, Ki Patih... I am not boasting. That man moved like a spirit. His body-lightening art was incredibly advanced, and his hands moved like lightning. With a single tap, he paralyzed all my nerves. He called himself... Lokajaya the Outlaw."
"Lokajaya..." Patih Sasrabahu growled as he sounded out the name. His eyes shifted to the inscription on the granary wall: If you seek the thief, seek the justice you have buried!
"The nerve!" the chief minister praised sarcastically as he turned around. "Whoever he is, whether a demon or a masked man, he has insulted the authority of the Duchy of Tuban! Gather every patrol soldier! Search every village outside the fortress! If anyone is found storing rice without the duchy's official seal, arrest them and flog them until they confess where Lokajaya is hiding!"
As the thunderous uproar of duchy soldiers began filling the main streets, the atmosphere inside the palace keputren was completely different.
Raden Said sat cross-legged in the corner of his room. He had removed his all-black clothing and hidden it in a secret chamber beneath the sandalwood floorboards. Now he was once again dressed in fine striped batik and a pale green silk beskap jacket—the formal attire of a duke's son.
His eyes were tightly closed. He was practicing meditation to calm the surge of pure energy in his chest after exhausting himself throughout the night. Yet the primary purpose of his meditation that morning was to absorb every pulse of his presence so that not a single palace guard or his teacher would suspect that he had just engaged in a high-level physical battle.
Hurried footsteps sounded in the outer corridor. Said's door was knocked on rather loudly.
"Raden... Raden Said!" Mbok Sri's anxious voice came from outside. She was the elderly attendant who had cared for Said since childhood.
Said slowly opened his eyes. The sharp glint in them dimmed at once, replaced by a calm, slightly sleepy gaze, carefully measured. He let out a long breath, pretending he had just awakened from a deep sleep.
"What is it, Mbok? Why is everyone making such a commotion so early?" Said asked as he stood and opened the door.
Mbok Sri pressed her palms together, her hands trembling. "Forgive me, Raden. The palace is in an uproar. Thieves broke into the duchy's rice granary in the western district last night! Ki Patih Sasrabahu is raging in the town square, and Kanjeng Duke has summoned the entire family and all the officials to gather in the Grand Audience Hall."
Said's expression changed—he put on a perfectly convincing look of surprise, a mixture of confusion and mild disbelief. "The duchy's granary was broken into? How could such heavy security have been breached by a thief?"
"I do not know for certain either, Raden. But the rumor going around says the thief was a masked martial artist of tremendous power. People outside the fortress have begun whispering his name... Lokajaya the Outlaw."
"Lokajaya the Outlaw..." Said murmured the name. A strange tremor spread through his chest as he heard his alias spoken by someone else for the first time. "All right, Mbok. I will go see Kanjeng Father in the Grand Audience Hall right away."
The Grand Audience Hall of the Duchy of Tuban was steeped in tension. Enormous teak pillars carved with golden designs supported the magnificent joglo roof, yet the air inside the hall seemed frozen. Duke Tumenggung Wilatikta sat upon his golden throne. His posture was rigid, but his jaw was clenched tight. To his left, Patih Sasrabahu stood with a tense expression, while dozens of district chiefs, military commanders, and senior duchy officials knelt on the expanse of red velvet carpeting.
Raden Said entered gracefully, lowering his head and bowing to his father before taking a seat among the duke's relatives on the right side of the throne.
"Sasrabahu," Tumenggung Wilatikta's voice was heavy and deep, echoing throughout the hall. "Explain to me how the main granary, guarded by a dozen elite soldiers, could be broken into without a single life lost and without any alarm being sounded."
Patih Sasrabahu stepped forward and bowed deeply. "Forgive me, Kanjeng Duke. Based on our inspection of the site and the guards' testimony, the culprit possesses an extremely advanced kanuragan. He has mastered a perfect-level body-lightening art and a rare technique for striking the body's blood pathways. All the guards were struck helpless before they had a chance to strike the alarm gong."
"And the rice?" the duke asked coldly.
"Nearly half the granary's contents are gone, Kanjeng. We found wagon tracks leading toward poor people's settlements to the south and north. It appears this thief did not work alone. Several local residents helped him transport the rice."
Hearing this, a portly district chief from the northern region, Demang Karta, hurried forward and bowed in panic. "Forgive me, Kanjeng Duke! This is clearly an act of rebellion! The common folk in the villages have begun daring to defy the duchy's laws! I suggest that every village in the northern region be searched, and anyone found storing that stolen rice be hanged in the town square!"
Said, sitting calmly beside the throne, narrowed his eyes. His blood boiled at Demang Karta's cruel proposal—a man he knew often multiplied tax collections to line his own pockets.
Unable to hold himself back any longer, Said raised his hand and spoke. "Kanjeng Father, allow me to say something."
Duke Wilatikta turned to look at his son. "Speak, Said."
Said rose slowly, staring straight at Patih Sasrabahu and Demang Karta. "Demang Karta's proposal is deeply unwise and could instead trigger even greater bloodshed. If soldiers search the homes of poor villagers and punish those who received the rice, will that solve anything? The people accepted the rice because they were starving and dying from the long drought, not because they were plotting a rebellion!"
Demang Karta bowed nervously, his face slightly reddening. "But Raden... that rice belongs to the duchy! If we let this go, the authority of the Tuban Palace will fall in the people's eyes!"
"A palace's authority is not measured by how much rice we store in our granaries while our people starve to death!" Said declared, his ringing voice making the pillars of the hall tremble. "If that granary was broken into, then something is wrong with the way we administer justice in this land! Why don't we investigate why the people have been driven so desperately to the point that they regard a robber as their savior?"
"Enough, Said!" Duke Wilatikta cut him off in a commanding tone. His voice was not especially loud, but it carried the weight of leadership that made the entire room fall silent at once.
Wilatikta regarded his son with a sharp, warning gaze. "This concerns the duchy's law and security, not a forum for moral debate. Sasrabahu, do your duty! Conduct a discreet investigation. Find out who this person calling himself Lokajaya the Outlaw is. Take him alive or dead! But remember, do not slaughter villagers without valid evidence."
"Your command is my duty, Kanjeng Duke!" Patih Sasrabahu replied with a respectful bow.
The grand council was dismissed. Said walked out of the Grand Audience Hall with his chest still feeling tight. He realized that his action the previous night had been nothing more than a small spark. The duchy's government would not change simply because one granary had been robbed; instead, they would tighten security and oppress the people even more in their search for the thief.
If you increase the guard, Said thought as he looked up at the brightening morning sky, then Lokajaya will leap over an even higher wall.
The following night arrived sooner than expected. Darkness once again wrapped itself around Tuban. Outside the palace walls, the atmosphere was far more ominous than the night before. Patrols of soldiers in battle gear and carrying torches appeared at every corner of the village roads. Every passing wagon was inspected, and every villager's door was pounded on by tax collectors searching for the stolen rice.
In a dilapidated hut on the edge of Karangan Village, an elderly widow named Mbok Murni sat trembling on a bamboo platform with her five-year-old grandson. In the corner of their kitchen, hidden behind a stack of firewood, lay half a sack of pristine white rice—the rice mysteriously delivered by a village youth early that morning on the orders of Lokajaya the Outlaw.
Suddenly, the hut's bamboo door was violently kicked in from outside.
Crash!
Three duchy soldiers entered with their torches raised. Their leader, a large, tall soldier with a rough grip, strode inside and headed straight for the kitchen.
"Search behind the firewood! The officials say this village received the largest share!" the soldier's leader shouted.
Within seconds, the sack of rice was found and dragged into the middle of the room.
"Found it!" one of the soldiers yelled. "High-quality rice belonging to the duchy! Old woman, where did you get this rice?! Confess!"
Mbok Murni prostrated herself at the soldier's feet, sobbing as she hugged her shrieking grandson. "Mercy, soldier... I don't know... This rice was already in front of my door this morning... My grandson hasn't eaten for three days..."
"Liar!" the soldier's leader shouted, raising the leather whip in his right hand. "You must be hiding the robber or working with him! Take this old woman away and burn her hut as a warning to the other villagers!"
As the leather whip arced through the air, ready to land on Mbok Murni's frail back, a black blur shot through the opening in the thatched roof.
Slice!
A small betel-leaf-shaped knife flew through the air and severed the whip's cord precisely in the middle, leaving the end of the whip limp on the ground.
The soldiers recoiled in shock. "Who is that?!"
From the darkness in the corner of the room, the masked figure in black emerged like a shadow taking form. His rough mori cloth absorbed the dim torchlight, while his sharp eyes glittered like those of a nocturnal hunting eagle.
"Lokajaya the Outlaw..." one of the soldiers whispered in a trembling voice, instinctively backing away two steps.
"You are soldiers of the duchy," Said's voice echoed coldly inside the cramped hut. "You are paid with the people's money and assigned to protect the weak, yet you raise your weapons against an old woman and an orphaned child. Is this what Tuban's soldiers are proud of?"
The soldier's leader growled, trying to conceal the fear spreading through his chest. "Filthy robber! You started all of this! Attack him!"
The three soldiers drew their krises and swords and leaped at Said together inside the cramped room. Their attacks were wild and disorganized, driven by panic.
Said did not move. He shifted his left foot a few inches backward, using the White Eel Technique—a technique of agility that relied on softness to overcome force. When the first sword slashed toward his neck, Said tilted his head by the slightest amount. The blade missed by only a few millimeters of the cloth covering his face.
Without wasting a movement, Said's right hand shot forward, hooked the soldier's wrist, and twisted it upward.
Crack!
The soldier screamed as his shoulder joint popped out of its socket, and his sword clattered to the floor. Said did not stop there. He flicked his left elbow into the chest of the second soldier, who had tried to stab him from the side. The internal force contained in that elbow strike sent the second soldier flying through the hut's bamboo wall and unconscious into the yard.
Only the soldier's leader remained. He gripped his sword with both hands, breathing hard. He tried to swing it in a deadly circle.
Said did not dodge. Instead, he stepped forward into the attack. With a palm strike cloaked in Wind-Core Pure Energy, Said slapped the sword's blade from the side.
CLANG!
The steel blade snapped in two. Before the soldier's leader could understand what had happened, Said's left fingers had clamped around his throat—not hard enough to cut off his breath, but firmly enough to stop all movement and courage from leaving the man.
"Listen carefully," Said whispered beside the trembling soldier's ear. "Return to your barracks. Tell Patih Sasrabahu and your district chiefs this: if they want to capture Lokajaya, they should look for me in high places. Never touch helpless common folk again. If I see you or your men threatening villagers again... you will not live to see dawn."
Said shoved the soldier's leader out through the doorway. The muscular man fled for his life with his injured men, leaving their torches smoldering on the ground.
Silence returned to the hut. Mbok Murni was still sitting on the floor, clutching her grandson tightly as she stared at the masked figure in black with eyes filled with awe and emotion.
Said knelt before the old widow. The cold, dangerous aura he had just released suddenly vanished, replaced by genuine warmth. He picked up the fallen sack of rice and carried it back to the safe corner of the kitchen.
"Grandmother, you have nothing to fear," Said said as gently as he could. "This rice belongs to you and your grandson. Eat. No soldier will dare come to this hut again tonight."
Mbok Murni bowed repeatedly, tears running down her wrinkled cheeks. "Thank you... Thank you so much, Young Master Lokajaya... May Allah repay your kindness..."
"This is not kindness, Grandmother. It is your right," Said said softly. From beneath his cloth belt, he produced several silver coins from his personal savings in the palace and placed them in Mbok Murni's wrinkled palm. "Use these to buy medicine and new clothes for your grandson."
Before the old woman could offer further thanks, Said had already risen and leaped out of the hut, vanishing into the darkness of the coastal night.
Said's actions that night did not end at Karangan Village. The night was still long, and his surging spirit refused to rest.
After ensuring Mbok Murni's safety, Said moved swiftly toward his next target: the residence of Ki Demang Seca in eastern Tuban. Ki Demang Seca was one of the officials most hated by the people. He was notorious for his cunning, regularly seizing the land of farmers who fell behind on their taxes, and storing piles of gold jewelry and silver coins in a secret chest behind his bedroom.
Ki Demang Seca's house was built like a grand fortress, with three-meter-high stone walls and eight hired silat fighters recruited from hard-line martial compounds throughout Central Java guarding it.
Said stood on the branch of a tall coconut palm outside the demang's walls. He watched the guards moving through the inner courtyard. Two silat fighters armed with spiked whips were patrolling in front of the main bedroom, while Ki Demang himself was busy counting gold coins on his carved table beneath the dim glow of an oil lamp.
This security is far tighter than at the rice granary, Said thought. But no matter how splendid a fortress is, it cannot hide wrongdoing.
Relying on the Kapuk Ranandhu Technique, Said leaped from the coconut tree without making even the faintest whisper of wind. He landed smoothly on the tiled roof of Ki Demang's main house. His movements were as quiet as a black cat walking across silk.
He crawled toward the back of the house and found a wooden ventilation opening above Ki Demang's private chamber. Using his thin knife, Said lifted the wooden latch and slipped into the ceiling.
Below him, Ki Demang Seca—a middle-aged man with a thin mustache and a protruding belly—was grinning broadly as he placed stacks of gold coins into a small iron chest.
"Ah... this month's tax harvest is truly extraordinary," Ki Demang muttered to himself. "Patih Sasrabahu will certainly be pleased with his share. And the rest... enough to buy two new racehorses from Sumbawa."
"Don't you intend to share a little of it with the farmers whose land you seized last week, Ki Demang?"
The voice came from the dark corner of the room.
Ki Demang nearly died of fright. The chest of gold in his hands almost slipped. He spun around, eyes bulging as he stared at the masked figure in black now sitting casually in his favorite teak chair, rolling a silver coin between his fingers.
"You... Who are you?! How did you get into my room?!" Ki Demang stammered, reaching for a bronze bell on the table to summon the guards.
Before his fingers touched the bell, a small knife flew through the air and struck the center of the bronze bell, pinning it firmly to the wooden tabletop.
"If you strike that bell, your fingers will meet the same fate as the bell," Said said coldly. He rose slowly and walked toward Ki Demang.
Ki Demang sagged in his chair, cold sweat streaming down his forehead and neck. "You... You're Lokajaya the Outlaw!"
"I'm pleased to know my name has reached your ears, Ki Demang," Said replied, stopping two paces in front of the table. "Close your chest. Tonight, all the gold and silver in this room is changing hands."
"No! Don't take my gold!" Ki Demang shrieked hysterically. "I worked for this for years! Guards! Guaaard!"
Ki Demang's scream shattered the silence of the house. Within seconds, hurried footsteps and pounding boots approached the room. The bedroom door was violently kicked in from outside.
Four hired silat fighters entered with their weapons raised—heavy machetes, spiked chains, and short spears.
"What's going on, Ki Demang?!" shouted the leader of the silat fighters, a pockmarked man with heavily bulging arm muscles.
"Kill him! He's the robber the duchy is searching for! Bring me his head and I'll pay you three times your usual fee!" Ki Demang shrieked from beneath the table.
At the promise of triple pay, greed flashed in the silat fighters' eyes. The pockmarked man spun his spiked chain, filling the cramped room with a terrifying roar.
"Prepare to die, Masked Boy!" the pockmarked man shouted as he whipped the chain toward Said's head.
The iron chain, tipped with a spiked ball, shot forward with astonishing speed, powerful enough to crush a human skull in a single blow. Yet Said did not move backward. Instead, he raised his right hand and caught the spinning ball with nothing but black mori cloth wrapped around his hand!
CLAP!
A sharp crack echoed through the room. The spiked iron ball stopped instantly in Said's grasp. The Prakosa Pure Energy he channeled through his entire palm kept the sharp iron spikes from piercing his skin at all!
The pockmarked man's eyes bulged, nearly popping from their sockets in shock. "How... How is that possible?!"
Without giving his opponent time to think, Said yanked the chain with a single burst of powerful internal force. The large man's body was jerked forward. Said met him with a straight kick that landed squarely in the man's solar plexus.
THUD!
The pockmarked man was thrown backward into two of his companions, sending all three sprawling across the floor, gasping violently and unable to stand again.
The fourth silat fighter, who held the heavy machete, trembled. He stared at Said, who still stood tall without so much as a blemish. His courage collapsed instantly. He threw his machete to the floor, turned, and fled the house in terror.
Said strolled toward the worktable. He pulled the trembling Ki Demang out from beneath it.
"Now, Ki Demang," Said said gently, "help me put all these gold and silver coins into the cloth bags."
With trembling hands and tears of belated regret, Ki Demang Seca was forced to place all the wealth he had extorted into the two large cloth bags Said had brought.
Once both bags were full, Said slung one over each shoulder. They weighed no less than fifty kilograms, but to Said, whose internal power had matured, the burden felt as light as carrying two sacks of cotton.
"Ki Demang," Said said before leaping toward the bedroom window. "Consider this your first tax payment toward the welfare of Tuban's people. If you try to collect retaliatory taxes from the villagers tomorrow morning... I will return, and what I take will no longer be your gold, but your office."
With one push of his foot, Said vaulted over the window's threshold, soared above the stone wall of Ki Demang's house, and merged once more with the darkness of night.
Just before dawn, another miraculous event shook the villagers in the northern and eastern regions around Tuban.
In front of the homes of the poorest farmers—their land seized, their family members dead from sickness and hunger—lay a small cloth bag. When they knocked it open, they found several gold and silver coins belonging to Ki Demang Seca, enough to buy back their land or keep their families alive for months to come.
No name had been left behind. Only a small circular carving topped by an arrow remained in the dusty ground before their doors.
The people began whispering among themselves. Their fear of cruel rulers was slowly replaced by a new hope. In the eyes of the oppressed common folk, the figure branded a criminal by the palace was not a robber, but a guardian angel sent by the Almighty to restore justice to the land of Java.
The name Lokajaya the Outlaw was no longer merely a secret whispered in the dark. It had become a living legend—a symbol of the common people's resistance against the tyranny of those in power.
Atop a towering limestone hill beyond the territory of the Duchy of Tuban, Raden Said stood gazing at the morning sun as it began to illuminate the vast sea. He had removed the cloth covering his face, allowing the strong sea wind to whip through his thick black hair.
His face looked weary after two consecutive nights of fighting and wandering without sleep, yet his eyes shone with an inner satisfaction he had never felt during his life of wealth within the palace. For the first time in his life, he felt that he had meaning. He felt he had put the knowledge and strength God had granted him to their proper use.
Yet Said was fully aware of the consequences of his actions. The path he had chosen was one with no turning back. He had beaten the drums of war against his own father, against the entire power structure of the Duchy of Tuban, and against the silat fighters who would one day be hired to hunt down his head.
"This path is a road through darkness that leads to the light," Raden Said whispered to himself as he clenched his right fist toward the rising sun. "Let my body be stained by the mark of a robber, so long as the people's hearts no longer weep. I will keep moving forward... as Lokajaya the Outlaw!"
With his resolve hardening like steel, Said put his face covering back on, turned, and walked down from the limestone hill, ready to face the great storm that was now gathering its strength to destroy him.